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And so it had gone on and on until Honor had abandoned her methodical attempt at departure and simply fled. She needed desperately to get home, back to her sanctuary, where she would be safe, protected by the comfort of familiar possessions and surroundings, wallowing in the misery of solitude...
So now she was here she had no luggage, no computer, no wallet and there wasn’t any food in the house. She had even abandoned Monty—not that he was likely to notice that she was gone from his over-pampered existence at the Blakes’. She would probably never be able to entice him home again... Another loss she could lay at Adam’s door.
She wandered through to the lounge and sat at her empty desk, looking out through the French doors at the spring colour that was blooming in her garden.
She could see bees floating lazily on the air above the nodding flowers, like giant motes of dust. She didn’t know how long she sat there in a semi-trance—it could have been hours—but the state of tranquil acceptance that Honor sought never came. Adam’s face kept intruding, and Sara’s—bright with loving glee that her desperate measures hadn’t been in vain after all, and Joy’s as she had last seen it, frowning anxiously as Honor had rushed past her out of the door, throwing herself into her car and driving away with a defiant spurt of gravel.
The desk drawer that had held her letters was still slightly ajar and she pulled it out, inevitably remembering that first night and the outrage she had felt to come back and find Adam rifling through her belongings. She touched the bottom of the empty drawer wistfully. Adam was always outraging her, in writing and in person, challenging her to think, to argue, to find some way to challenge him back. Even in bed he had challenged her to excite him.
But this time she had no heart for the fight. She had lost it last night, along with her courage and her sense of humour, not to mention her wretched virginity. If only she had been a complete slut—she probably would have eloped with Adam by now instead of being held hostage by her ridiculous scruples about love! She smiled faintly; perhaps she hadn’t quite lost her sense of humour after all...
When her doorbell rang she found she hadn’t lost her heart either, because it began thumping madly. But when she looked out of the window she discovered that it wasn’t a smoking Mercedes parked behind her in the driveway but a light blue van she didn’t recognise. Damn it, did she really expect Adam to come running round after her entreating her to change her mind? He was probably glad she had let him off the hook!
Her steps dragged as she answered the door to find a lanky, gum-chewing young stranger waiting impatiently. He raised his clipboard and pen.
‘You Miss Honor Sheldon?’
‘Yes.’
r /> ‘Honor Leigh Sheldon?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Honor Leigh Sheldon who works for the Evansdale Advertiser?’
‘Yes!’ Now it was Honor who was impatient. ‘Yes, that’s me. What are you doing, conducting a survey?’ With her current run of luck it would be a survey of local virgins.
‘Sign here.’
‘Why?’ she asked dully.
‘Because I have a package for you, that’s why, and you have to sign for it.’
‘What package?’ Belatedly she noticed the name of a courier company, painted on the side of the van.
The envelope he made her sign for was a plain, A4 manila with no address or identification on the outside, save the courier’s serial number.
‘What is it?’ she wondered out loud, turning it over in her hands.
‘Don’t ask me, I only deliver ’em,’ the young man shrugged. ‘But in case it’s a letter-bomb I think I’ll leave you to it.’
He was chuckling at his mortuary humour as he walked away, and Honor gave her door a little slam as she went back inside, to show him what his customers thought of his feeble jokes.
The envelope was sealed so she went back to her desk and used her silver letter-opener to slit the seal. It slipped, nearly cutting her finger, and the contents of the envelope spilled out over the blotter. They were photographs and Honor sifted through the first two disinterestedly.
People often sent her colour photographs, hoping they would make the newspaper’s social events page, but these were even less usable than most. The woman, the same one in both pictures, was wearing clothing almost the same colour as the indistinct background, into which she would probably recede completely if converted to black and white for the paper. She had short, wavy, mouse-brown hair and a cowlick on one side that wouldn’t sit down. Spectacles sat on her button nose, and her wide, friendly smile was spoiled by slightly crooked front teeth.
Honor fanned through the other pictures and was surprised to see they were mostly of the same woman involved in various outdoor activities that showed off a pear-shaped figure that might have been considered the feminine ideal—three hundred years ago. Honor sympathised with the picture of the woman in a swimsuit, although she didn’t appear to be self-conscious, laughing with the small child frolicking in the water beside her, a chubby child with straggly blonde hair and big eyes that...
Honor looked harder. She looked from the child to the woman. She scrabbled among the photographs until she burnt her fingers on one in which the woman, pregnant this time, had a male escort, a big, husky man who towered over her as he held her in the crook of his long arm...
The tingling flame shot up Honor’s arms and coagulated in her chest, burning even more fiercely as she slowly turned the photograph over. There, written in age-faded blue ink in a hand she knew as well as her own, was scrawl:
Mary and I at the Hannigans’ Harvest Dance. Mary’s varicose veins wouldn’t let her cut up wild on the floor as usual!
Honor raised her hands to her mouth and pressed them there, closing her eyes briefly.
Mary. Helen of Troy. Two women as dissimilar as it was possible for them to be.
